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Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree) mixes monsters and poetry in Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies. This re-issue celebrating the book’s fiftieth birthday contains the same poems and the same ink and watercolor illustrations as the earlier edition.
Many of the more than forty poems are two to ten lines in length, written with humor and rhyme. (There is a terrible twenty-foot Feezus. / Shhh… I don’t think he sees us.) Some of the monsters have mouthfuls of teeth (the Wild Gazite and the Gru) and out-of- proportion body parts (Underslung Zath and the Gheli), but they look more like silly than scary. Their drab colors suit them, though.
Silverstein’s imagination, both with words and drawings, is what makes this poetry book so impressive. There is a hat disguised as a monster called a Ginnit (rhymes with minute) and one called the Bibely that has its face on its stomach.
Silverstein was thinking of kids when he wrote these poems—there are references to baths, foods kids like, making monsters disappear by turning on lights, and instances of mild gross humor (and now we are restin’ in his small intestine). This is a great addition to any poetry collection.
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Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies